Creators and owners of digital images require ways to protect those images from unauthorized copying. The problems with unauthorized copying of images is exacerbated by the Internet (more specifically, the World Wide Web), and the ease with which images can simply be copied from most web pages that display them.
Presently, the only way to protect website content from being downloaded is to encrypt it and then require the user to have an external plug-in for his or her browser which will decrypt the image. This approach is not ideal, since it can require special software running on the server (an inconvenience to the presenter of the image) and special software on the user end (an inconvenience to the viewer). Due to these difficulties, many web sites present their text and images unencrypted, and simply use the threat of legal action against copyright infringement to anyone who reuses the content without permission.